1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cellular phone apparatus with a full keyboard, which can be used as a personal digital assistant (PDA) for e-mail and the Internet as well as a call.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, cellular phones have widely been used for access to e-mail and the Internet, preparation of documents, and the like. However, prior art cellular phones have only a ten key (dial key) in principle. In order to input characters other than numerals, generally, a user has to depress a key at least one time to select a desired character. Character input operations are therefore very troublesome and take a long time. To resolve this problem, a cellular phone with the same character input full keyboard as that of a personal computer and a cellular phone with both a ten key and a full keyboard are developed (refer to URL:http://k-tai.impress.co.jp/cda/article/news_toppage/20503.html, for example).
FIG. 8 is an external view of a cellular phone 1 with both a ten key and a full keyboard. In FIG. 8, (A1) is a front view of the cellular phone in use for a call, (A2) is a bottom view of the cellular phone in use for a call, (B1) is a front view of the cellular phone which is provided longitudinally and whose full keyboard is in use, and (B2) is a bottom view of the cellular phone which is provided longitudinally and whose full keyboard is in use.
The above cellular phone 1 includes a thin, rectangular terminal body 2 incorporating a main electronic circuit (not shown) and a cover section 3 that can be opened and closed through a hinge 4 provided on the long side of the terminal body 2. The terminal body 2 and cover section 3 serve as a cabinet of the cellular phone.
Referring to (A1) and (A2) in FIG. 8, the cover section 3, which corresponds to the front of the cellular phone 1 that is closed (in use for a call), includes a calling ten key 5 that can be operated with one hand in its lower area, an external display 6 in its upper area, a microphone 7 at its lower end and a speaker 8 at its upper end.
Referring to (B1) and (B2) in FIG. 8, the terminal body 2, which corresponds to the front of the cellular phone 1 that is opened (the full keyboard in use), includes a full keyboard 9 that can be operated with both hands, and the cover section 3 has a large-sized display 10 on its whole area.
The large-sized display 10 faces a user of the cellular phone 1 when the user opens the cover section 3 through the hinge 4 and, in other words, the display 10 is supported by the back of the cover section 3. If the cellular phone 1 is provided laterally to use the full keyboard, a user can depress keys to input characters with both hands. The laterally display 10 allows e-mail and a home page on the Internet to be displayed easily and clearly.
Since the above-described prior art cellular phone 1 includes the full keyboard 9 and large-sized display 10 which are located on the symmetrical areas in addition to the calling ten key 5 and its upper external display 6, it has the advantages of gaining access to e-mail and the Internet and preparing documents easily. However, the cellular phone 1 requires two display sections of the external display 6 and large-sized display 10, and thus its production costs are greatly increased.
The present invention has been developed in consideration of the above situation, and its object is to provide a cellular phone capable of maintaining good portability and operability without two display sections and thus reducing production costs.